“Against Cuba, the United States government is waging a multidimensional, unconventional war that has lasted for almost seven decades and has become more brutal and ruthless in the last seven months,” Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla told a special session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York July 7.
“Now, the energy blockade, equivalent to a naval blockade, has been added, which is an act of war,” he said. “Access to fuel supplies to Cuba, both commercial and humanitarian, is being prevented through direct threats, unilateral coercive actions, and even the harassment or intimidation of tankers by U.S. naval forces.”
To address the recent sharp intensification of the longstanding economic and political war waged by Washington, the Cuban government requested an urgent debate be held during the 80th session of the U.N. on the “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.”
Washington did everything it could to prevent the debate, including pressure from the State Department on several of its embassies. “Should the debate proceed, the U.S. asks its allies to attack Cuba in their speeches, accusing it of incompetence, corruption and economic failure, and to avoid blaming the embargo for the crisis,” Granma wrote July 7, quoting a State Department cable.
Despite Washington’s bullying, the proposal to hold the debate was approved by a vote of 136 delegates in favor, nine opposed, led by the U.S, and 30 abstaining.
This is the first time Cuba has requested a special debate leading up to a U.N. General Assembly vote, which has been held annually, on a resolution to end the embargo.
Rodríguez told the Assembly, “There have been repeated threats of military aggression from the highest levels of the U.S. government, and public sources describe war options and preparations.
“In addition to the economic, commercial and financial blockade, unprecedented and extremely extraterritorial actions are being taken,” he said, “such as the use of secondary sanctions that follow the macabre plan to provoke a humanitarian crisis in Cuba and the total destabilization of the country, paving the way for or forcing a presidential order for an imperialist military intervention that would cause a bloodbath and countless losses of Cuban and American lives.”
After the 1959 Cuban Revolution when the new government of workers and farmers nationalized American-owned businesses, President Dwight Eisenhower imposed a partial trade embargo, followed by the implementation of a near-total embargo by President John Kennedy in 1962.
Rodríguez gave updated figures for the financial damages the blockade has caused today, reaching $8 billion between March 2025 and February 2026. This does not include the oil blockade that began in February.
“There is no American blockade,” claimed Michael Waltz, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., arguing that the dire economic conditions faced by the Cuban people are all caused by the Cuban government itself, not by the “so-called blockade.”
Waltz also denigrated the thousands of Cuban medical workers who, since the Cuban Revolution, have volunteered their services in many countries around the world, saving countless lives. He called them “Cuba’s modern-day slave trade.” In addition, Waltz falsely claimed, “Cuban Christians have been persecuted, dissidents are sent to labor camps, Afro-Cubans are rounded up.”
Rodríguez pointed out that Waltz, in addition to the slanders, was refusing to address the issues in the debate. “This is not surprising, because he represents the government responsible for the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the government responsible for the dozens of military interventions, and the government that has supported the most brutal military dictatorships in Latin America and other regions.”
Support widespread from delegates
Many U.N. delegates and representatives of regional organizations spoke in opposition to the U.S. blockade, expressing concern about crisis conditions faced in Cuba.
Issa Konfourou of Mali, speaking for the U.N.’s African Group, said that since the General Assembly voted in its overwhelming majority last October calling for an end to the U.S. embargo of Cuba, “that call has not been heeded.”
Konfourou said Washington has now gone even further in targeting Cuba’s energy sector. “This reaches well beyond the longstanding embargo,” he said, “drawing third states into enforcement of a policy that this body has condemned year after year.”
He concluded by saying, “The African Group will remain firm in its principled position of solidarity with Cuba, its people and government.”
Ambassador Burhan Gafoor of Singapore, speaking for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said, “It is fundamentally the well-being of ordinary Cubans that lies at the heart of our shared concern.” In addition to calling for an end to the U.S. oil blockade, he called on Washington to delist Cuba as a “state sponsor of terrorism.”
Speaking for the Non-Aligned Movement, Ambassador Adonia Ayebare of Uganda called on the United States to cease its “escalation against the sovereignty, territorial integrity, independence and self-determination of the Republic of Cuba.”
Representing the Group of 77 and China, Ambassador Laura Dupuy Lasserre of Uruguay said the group “calls for the immediate, complete and unconditional lifting of the embargo.” She called the Helms-Burton Act “a transgression to the freedom of commerce,” because its purpose is to punish a country that has the courage to trade with Cuba.
One of the final speakers was the U.N. representative of Cape Verde, Tania Serafim Yvonne Romualdo. “Cabo Verde and Cuba continue to enjoy longstanding relations of friendship, built on solidarity, mutual respect and shared values. Cuba has made invaluable contributions to our national development.”
Cuba’s Rodríguez concluded, “A people that has been fighting for its freedom and independence for more than 150 years and that has written pages of glory standing up to resist all attacks, will defend its independence and sovereignty at all costs.
“In the year of the centenary of the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution, Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, faithful to his legacy, the decision of the Cuban people will always be: Homeland or death. We shall overcome.”